In which I realize that “Hey! I’m getting Married!”

So the wedding is in six weeks. That is what my calendar is now telling me anyhow. It is telling me that somehow 3 months have passed in this year already and now there are six weeks until I walk down the aisle to the man that I love.

How did this happen?

Let me go back a bit.

We’ve had a long engagement by most standards. We got engaged on Christmas of 2010 and decided that 2012 was enough time to plan this event while giving me time to keep my sanity and lose weight properly without trying to crash diet my way to a dress I loved. The dieting part was amazingly successful and now I am very happy with my weight and my dress. Sure I want to continue to lose until I am at what the BMI indicator says I should be but really I am satisfied that I will look good going down that aisle.

Well while I was busy working to lose the weight and busy working and living and all those other things that we all have to do…time was going by. Yes I was planning this wedding but I didn’t really realize until lately that the date is getting very close and that very soon I will have a new last name and a husband to go along with it.

That isn’t to say that I’m not excited. I am practically bouncing off the walls in happiness. There is just a lot to do and a lot to take in. For example I have a bridal shower this weekend. MY bridal shower. I have been to a million of these things. I’ve sat and watched the happy bride open gifts, played the games, and smiled as she went on about the flowers and dresses and everything. This time however…I’m the bride. It’s still weird to say that or even think it. I’m the bride.

It’s not that I haven’t thought about it. It’s not that the idea has never occurred to me in the past months, but it’s starting to feel real. I’m getting married. I’m a grown up…(sort of) When did this all happen? I guess it’s like parent’s say…you blink and the time is gone.

So now with six weeks to go I am busier than ever. A bridal shower this weekend, my bachelorette party is next weekend, I have tent rentals to finalize, photography, DJ, songs to decide on for the “must play” , songs to put down in red ink as a “Do Not Play”, deciding on the earrings I am going to wear, getting the flowers, making leis and bouquets with my grandmother when she gets in from Hawaii, spending time with my mom’s family who has not been together (as in everyone at the same time) in 33 years. It’s amazing how fast the next few weeks will go by with all that going on, especially on top of my normal daily activities of work, housework, and workouts.

But it is what it is, and as I said before I am thrilled and excited and ready to go…after all it’s going to be an amazing day!

In Which “Start the Process” is employed and we talk about “Nerdists”

My brothers are awesome. Basically that is the very first thing you should know.

Secondly, they keep me up on the awesomeness of the world and what goes on in it while I am off in Wonderland.

Enter, “The Nerdist Way” by Chris Hardwick a super amazing book for anyone who suspects that they may in fact be a nerd. It is also an amazing book for those of us that over analyze…everything. Plus it is hilarious, which is always a bonus.

Am I a nerd? Um yes! Honestly I have no issues with this label. I mean come on….I own over 300 My Little Ponies, Geek out over Tokidoki characters, and still believe that FF7 is the most awesome game ever. In addition I quote Harry Potter, LOTR, and various other randoms all the time. However I hate Math. Hate it. Numbers are not my friends. Words=Good and Numbers=Bad. However even minus the math love I am a nerd.

Now the book is basically a guide or big book of suggestions if you prefer that is meant to help you use your nerdy brain to better help you in life instead of letting it keep you stuck in the same over analyzed and in my own personal case-paralyzed state. I tend to have issues making decisions for fear that I will make the wrong one, this is an entire section in the book and I cannot tell you how much better I felt knowing that other people out there deal with this. I am not the only person who can stare at Netflix for hours and watch nothing because I cannot commit! Huzzah!

One of my favorite parts is something that has been said before but for some reason seems a lot more manageable when Chris talks about it. “Start the Process” is basically the idea that you need to just start something. Stop stressing about if it is good enough or if it is perfect BEFORE YOU EVEN WRITE A WORD! (as a writer this is my big issue, I label things as “crappy” before I even put them on paper and therefore a lot of things don’t get written and I have empty notebooks laying around that annoy the fiancé a bit) You need to start the process and get things going. So what if the first draft sucks? That is why it is the “first” draft and not the final. No one ever has to see the first draft but you if you so choose. So go ahead and write crappy things, in fact just enjoy the fact that you can come up with the worst ideas ever! (After all would we have gems like Sharktopus if we didn’t have people that were okay with things that were ridiculous?) Own the awesomeness of your work whether it is in fact awesome or is in fact a complete mess.

Right now I am trying to use “Start the Process” I am getting back into blogging and writing without judging my work the moment I go to write it down. I am in fact writing off the cuff and finding that it is in fact very liberating and I am quite pleased with what has been forming on the page. Writing has always been my favorite and I tend to be fairly decent at it, but I always forget that. For some reason my brain can easily convince me that I have nothing to say and therefore should say nothing at all. This is complete crap when I think about it rationally.  However my brain is very rarely rational so therefore times when I hit this clarity are few and far between. 

So here's to starting the process, enjoying the work that I actually put down on paper/blog, and staying sane through planning the wedding.  Oh and here is some Tokidoki Love!!

In Which A Problem is Identified and a Solution Suggested

This is becoming a problem. My life is. My life is becoming a problem.

 

That sounds amazingly dramatic don’t you think? Ah well let’s face it I am dramatic, it’s okay I can live with it.

 

What was I saying?

 

Ah yes, my life is becoming a problem.

 

I am stressed. I spend a lot of time worrying about things that I am not getting done while trying to get other things done. Ergo I manage to not get anything done and fall into a pit of “I am a useless person/bride”. It’s not just wedding things I am failing at it seems but also things in my daily life. I worry about the fact I am not writing as much, I worry that my blog is falling off the face of the earth because the old one is now lost and gone due to a virus and the new one has not been properly promoted to get me back in my blogging community that I miss. I worry about getting my house in order, budgeting, and in general being a good wife once the wedding is over.  See? I told you it was a problem!

 

So what to do? Well my plan is to go back to my tried and true method of lists (lists are comforting for me) and getting back to blogging regularly for the accountability and the amazing support and sometimes delusion shattering voices of the blog world. I am going to have to apply myself to get this completed but honestly I have to get it done if I hope to have any sanity left by the time honeymoon rolls around. The blog is also going to undergo a little change to make it a little more appealing and a lot more functional. Plus it will be more fun for me and that is always a plus!

 

So here’s to starting over, trying again, finding sanity, and all that other awesome stuff!

Time Goes Marching On....

Wow the days pass quickly….how is it over a month since I started this new blog up? Where is the time going? Already February 20, 2012. This year is going to be gone before you know it.

Actually the time has been going fast ever since we got engaged. We planned so that we would have a year and a half before getting married and now we are down to just 80 days until the big day! Not to say that we haven’t been crazy busy in the time since. Actually I have been near crazy busy and my big focus has been trying to look amazing for the big day!

Right now I am sitting happily at 160lbs…down 75 lbs from last year. It’s hard to believe that I lost that much this past year. Especially since it took me so long to finally buckle down and do things right. For so very long I kept putting things off, I would always plan to start tomorrow…or I would give up by the end of the day because of one little slip up. However the proof is in the pictures. We took our engagement photos on Feb 12 this year and one of my bridesmaids sent me this picture from Feb 13^th of last year. I think that it serves as a very telling before and after….

It’s hard to believe that those pounds made such a difference in my life. The way I feel about myself, the way I present myself to others….I feel like my whole life is different. Of course it does help that I am about to undertake a huge life change anyhow!

So what made the difference? How did I do it? What is the magic secret thing that made me drop the weight and finally find myself back in jeans I haven’t worn since I was sixteen? Man that is tricky. I always used to get so frustrated when I went to a successful weight loss blog and there was never a miracle answer and no magic cure. They never had the right answer for me it seemed…and unfortunately I fear that I won’t have the right answer for you either. As much as weight loss is put under the microscope, as much as we laugh and joke about it here in blogs and forums, it is an intensely personal thing. We gain the weight for personal reasons, we lose it for personal reasons, and all the madness between is such an intimate battle between ourselves and who we wish to be…well that is the reason there is no magic cure. Some days you are winning the war and some days you aren’t. Some soldiers can fight through it with ferocity and intense physical punishment, and some and only put one foot in front of the other as we simply try to carry on.

But I can tell you one thing…you can do this. You will in fact do this. Maybe not today or tomorrow but you will win at this battle. You are going to find the end of the rainbow, you are going to one day look in the mirror and like the reflection you see, all you have to do is hold your head up high and keep marching on.

A Beginning

Back to the land of blogging! It has been awhile but I am ready to get back into the swing of things. My last blog unfortunately was infected and thus had to close down, but honestly I had not been giving it the attention that I needed to. A lot has gone on this past year and all my attentions have been focused on things other than my daily blogging. However with this New Year and a new blog I feel it is time to get back into the game!

Now the old blog focused mainly on my journey of going from fat to fit, but the new blog is really going to be focused on my life as a writer, wanna-be crafty goddess, my not so secret addiction to Pintrest, and for the next four months, a bride to be!

The wedding is on May 12, 2012 and it is arriving faster than you can imagine! We’ve been engaged since Christmas 2010 but that doesn’t mean there isn’t still a lot of planning going on! I plan on sharing all the things I have learned while planning this wedding and all my tips on how to be a Princess Bride on a Budget! There is no reason you can’t have the wedding of your dreams while still maintaining your sanity when it comes to spending.

I’ll be separating the different topics into tabs at the top of the page at some point this week, that way you can be choosy if you like! I plan to post a couple times a week, but hopefully I’ll be able to do more than that!

Okay so that I think I have rambled enough for my first blog post, but I am just so very glad to be back!